defectiones lunae

I enjoyed very much watching the lunar eclipse we had in Sydney earlier this week. It's interesting that such a natural and well understood phenomenon can inspire such excitement and wonder. Lots of natural events (eg earthquakes, volcanoes) were mysteries to the Romans, but eclipses, of both the sun and the moon were things they could not only understand, but even predict.

Lots of Roman writers mention eclipses- Pliny in his Natural History, Seneca in his Natural Questions, and even Cicero refers to them from time to time. Here's one example from Cicero's De Republica, part of a conversation between Scipio Aemilianus and his nephew Tubero:

Scipio: I remember when my father was consul in Macedonia and we were in camp (I was quite young at the time), our army was troubled with superstitious fear because on a clear night the bright full moon suddenly failed. Galus was then our staff officer, about a year before he was elected consul. On the next day, without any hesitation, he made a public statement in the camp to the effect that this was not an omen; it had happened then, and would continue to happen at fixed times in the future, when the sun was in a position from which its light could not reach the moon.... He relieved those desperately worried worried soldiers from groundless superstition and fear...

Something of that kind also happened in the great war which was fought with such ferocity between Athens and Sparta. When an eclipse of the sun brought sudden darkness, and the Athenians' minds were in the grip of panic, the great Pericles is said to have told his fellow citizens a fact which he had heard from his former tutor Anaxagoras, namely that this thing invariably happened at fixed intervals when the entire moon passed in front of the sun's orb; and so, while it did not occur at every new moon, it could not occur except in that situation...

At that time it was a new and unfamiliar idea that the sun was regularly eclipsed when the moon came between it and the earth- a fact which was reputedly discovered by Thales of Miletus. On a later occasion the point was also made by our own Ennius. He writes that about three hundred and fifty years after the foundation of Rome:

On June the fifth the moon and night blocked out
The sun.

In this area there is so much scientific sophistication that earlier solar eclipses are calculated from this day (recorded by Ennius and the Major Annals) right back to the one which occurred on July the seventh in the reign of Romulus. In that darkness nature carried Romulus off to a normal death; yet we are told that on account of his valour he was raised to heaven.

The banishment of superstition is a common theme throughout Cicero's philosophical writings- the good life (vita beata) is the life lived in accordance with reason (ratio) and nature (natura). And so notice how he applauds the calm rationality of Galus and Pericles, and provides a rationalistic version of the death of Romulus- 'nature carried Romulus off to a normal death', at the same time distancing himself- 'it is told'- from the supernatural or superstitious version of events.

[If you're interested in reading more about eclipses and Romans I found this essay fascinating]

mors Augusti

Yesterday marked (if my calculations are correct) 1,993 years since the death of Rome's first Emperor, Augustus Caesar. Augustus wasn’t his really his proper name- he was born Gaius Octavius, but when he was adopted by Julius Caesar he changed his name (according to Roman custom) to Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, from where his other well known name – Octavian – comes.

The name Augustus itself is more of a title than a name- it means something like ‘sacred’ or ‘majestic’, and was granted to him by the Roman senate after his victory over Marc Antony and Cleopatra. Here's how the Roman biographer and historian Suetonius described his death:

Supremo die identidem exquirens an iam de se tumultus foris esset, petito speculo, capillum sibi comi ac malas labantes corrigi praecepit, et admissos amicos percontatus [est] ecquid iis videretur mimum vitae commode transegisse... Omnibus deinde dimissis, dum advenientes ab urbe de Drusi filia aegra interrogat, repente in osculis Liviae et in hac voce defecit: "Livia, nostri coniugii memor vive, ac vale!" sortitus exitum facilem et qualem semper optaverat...

On his last day, he would ask now and then if there was any disturbance in the forum on his account, and calling for a mirror, he ordered his hair to be combed, and his hollow cheeks to be adjusted and he enquired of his friends, who were there, if he seemed to them to have performed life's play well enough... Then, having dismissed them all, while he was questioning some who had just arrived from the city, about Drusus's sick daughter, he suddenly died, amidst the kisses of Livia, and with this cry: "Livia! Live with the memory of our marriage; and now, farewell!" having been granted an easy death, and of such a kind as he had always wished for.

[Suetonius, Divus Augustus 99]

Elvis Rex

In case you missed it, this past week has been Elvis Week- 30 years since the (rumoured) death of Elvis Presley. I'm not much of a fan, but someone who is, is Jukka Ammondt, who has released a recording of Elvis' songs in Latin. Why? In his own words: "Latin is an eternal language and therefore I believe it is important to document Elvis' songs also in this eternal language." You can order his CDs (including his most recent hit 'Three Songs in Sumerian') from his website.

These are a few of the songs he has covered; see if you can work out their English titles:

• non adamare non possum
• tenere me ama
• ne saevias
• glaudi calcei

Milky Richness

There’s a famous passage in Quintilian’s Institutio Oratoria where he describes the ‘milky richness’ (lactea ubertas) of Livy’s Histories. It’s a very evocative phrase, which I’ve often thought related to the smoothness of Livy’s prose style, “rich, smooth, free from turbulence” or “flowing… avoiding the abruptness of Thucydides’s Greek and Sallust’s Latin” as it has been variously described.

[by H. J. Rose in A Handbook of Latin Literature (p300), and J. Wight Duff in A Literary History of Rome from the Origins to the Close of the Golden Age (p480) respectively]

However I recently read an article which suggested another possible interpretation of the phrase. The author points out that “Livy is remarkable for the extreme range of styles which he uses in his narrative to achieve variety”, and that it’s therefore a bit of a stretch to characterise his style as smooth and flowing.

A better way of understanding Quintilian’s phrase (so the author argues) is that Livy’s writing is ‘nutritional’ and ‘appropriate for infants’; that is, it is good for students of rhetoric as it provides them with good models to imitate; it helps them to ‘grow up’ as speakers, just as milk helps babies to grow up and mature. The metaphor of milk in the context of education is found elsewhere in Quintilian, in several first century Greek writers, and even in the bible. It also fits with Quintilian’s own methods of education. As he writes in his Insititutio Oratoria (2.5.19)

“For my part I would have them read the best authors from the very beginning and never leave them, choosing those, however, who are simplest and most intelligible. For instance when prescribing [texts] for boys, I should give Livy the preference over Sallust; for although the latter is the greater historian, one requires to be well advanced in one’s studies to appreciate him properly.”

It is good for young boys to read Livy not because he is the best historian, but because his writing will help them to mature in their studies.(Quintilian is silent on what girls should read.)

The article finishes up with this helpful summary:

“I conclude, then, that illa lactea ubertas Livi is an assertion that students at the elementary levels of the oratorical curriculum can obtain from reading Livy the sort of supplementary information and stylistic skills which keep their speeches from being bare bones. They will encounter unusual words, rhythmic prose structures, notable tropes, other ornamental features, and a general fullness of style which are the components of ubertas. And they will encounter them in an author who will prove enjoyable and engaging, and thus suitable to their youth.”

[Lactea Ubertas: What's Milky about Livy? Steve Hays The Classical Journal, Vol. 82, No. 2 (Dec., 1986 - Jan., 1987), pp. 107-116]